- Go through the official channels to get government data from different sources. Both from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
- Understand the structure of the Great Barrier Reef monitoring programs using publicly available data.
- Learn how to produce interactive maps and maps using shape files.
- Produce maps as those reported by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science both in their official reports and in their scientific papers.
- Have fun and please participate!
Exercise 1: Getting the data
Please visit the following sites to obtain the data sets for the tutorial:
- AIMS (ltmp and mmp): Please download the data for the Long term monitoring program and for the Marine monitor program as indicated in the figure below:
Download link here
- Shape files from the: Please select all the layers marked in the figure below.

Download link here
Exercise 2: Create a report and read the data
- Create a reproducible Rmd file called tutorial5.Rmd that would render into html and make sure the figures that you produce will be automatically store into a folder called Tutorial5_Images
- Include relevant R libraries at the top of the file.
- Read data from the Marine monitoring program (MMP) and form the Long Term Monitoring program (LTMP) and examine the data.
- Create three figures one for the MMP data and two for the LTMP data displaying the sampling locations as follows: Color the locations according to NRM_Regions and according to the sectors and self as relevant for each data set. Make sure the figures have titles explaining which data set is being used.
Exercise 3: Creating maps using leaflet
- Create an interactive map displaying sampling locations for the MMP data set.
- Create an interactive map displaying sampling locations for the LMMP data set.
- Make sure you name the R code chunks so that the figures are stored with the appropriate names.
- Make sure the figures are save into Tutorial5_Images
Exercise 4: Creating maps using shape files
- Using the shape files that you download in Exercise 1 display the sampling locations for the LTMP data set colored according to SECTOR (one map for each shape file = two maps)
- Using the shape files that you download in Exercise 1 display the sampling locations for the LTMP data set colored according to SELF (one map for each shape file = two maps)
- Make sure you name the R code chunks so that the figures are stored with the appropriate names.
- Make sure the figures are save into Tutorial5_Images